


Casperton Horror

by Laurawrzz



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Doctor Whump, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween, Haunted Houses, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurawrzz/pseuds/Laurawrzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a rainy windy night on Hallowe'en, three time travellers find themselves lost in the bowels of south-west England in a haunted house... But ghosts don't exist. That's what the Doctor says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Don is my alternate name for the metacrisis, in an A/U post-series 4 world where Rose and the metacrisis stayed on the TARDIS. Because it SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

It was a cold, windy October night, and three very wet, windswept and thoroughly disgruntled time travellers were making their way by foot down a long, seemingly endless road in the deep depths of the English countryside, almost completely lost.

"You said the TARDIS was down here!" Rose exclaimed through chattering teeth, hugging the Doctor's coat even tighter around her to try and block out the cold of the night.

"I said I  _thought_ the TARDIS was down here," the Doctor corrected, hopping to avoid a building puddle on the ground.

"He's got us lost," Don the meta-crisis muttered, now almost completely unable to feel the end of his nose from the cold. "We're completely lost in the middle of nowhere."

"No, we're not," the Doctor insisted quickly. "We're just... umm... Straying from the intended destination."

"What the hell is the time?" Rose wondered.

"Err... ten-thirty."

"You said we'd be back by ten!"

"I said  _hopefully_ we'd be back by ten!" the Doctor corrected again, a little lamely.

"We're  _looost!"_ Don sang quietly.

"We're not lost!" the Doctor said strongly.

"He's got us  _loooost!"_

"Don, you're not helping!"

"But we're lost, aren't we?" Rose breathed, feeling more and more cold and miserable by the second.

"Look!" the Doctor began, spinning around on the spot to address his two companions, his finger in the air. "It wasn't  _my_  fault the Pixians decided to teleport the TARDIS aboard their ship and then dump her back miles from where we left her..."

"Yeah, it was!" Don replied instantly. "They  _asked_ you where you wanted to put her!"

The Doctor made to retort, then very quickly realised he didn't even have anything to say to that, so he just closed his mouth and spun back around on his heel, and hurried on.

"Yeah, keep walking, Time Boy!" Don yelled back... and then stopped dead, frowning. "Donna's back," he muttered, wide-eyed and looking at Rose.

She giggled, taking his hand and shuffling after the Doctor.

They continued trudging along for about twenty seconds in silence before they turned a corner, and suddenly the Doctor turned back to them, grinning and pointing. "Yesss!"

Don and Rose acquired a sudden burst of energy, smiles bursting on their faces at the mere  _thought_  of a hot bubbly bath and their comfy TARDIS beds...

Then stopped, faces simultaneously dropping.

"A house!" the Doctor exclaimed happily, then paused, staring at them, his face falling. "... What?"

Rose just sighed and looked at the floor, Don scratching the back of his head, frowning slightly.

"Okay, it's not the TARDIS," the Doctor admitted. "But it's shelter. We just ask for a place to sleep and start off again tomorrow morning."

They didn't reply.

"Or," the Doctor began. "We could carry on walking in the rain and wind for another hour."

Don considered this, and then instantly perked up. "A house!" he exclaimed happily, nudging Rose, who smiled instantly.

"A house!" she echoed, just as happy.

"Good!" the Doctor said, smiling. "C'mon."

They continued down the road and turned into a track leading to a small farmhouse, the old rusty metal sign saying 'Old Grey Farm' swinging and squeaking back and forth in the wind. They continued up the track to the front door of the rotting crooked house, where the Doctor made to knock, but Don quickly pushed him out of the way.

"I'll handle this!" he declared, striding towards the door before quickly trying to sort out his clothes and hair to half-presentable, then finally knocking on the door, assuming the appropriate posture.

Within a few moments the door swung inwards to reveal a short scruffy old bearded man, hunched over holding a walking stick with a crooked spine, a cataract in one eye and wearing dirty, torn, ragged clothes that hung loosely on his thin frame. He simply stared at the group, looking between them as if regarding cattle to be slaughtered.

"Hello!" Don began brightly, smiling. "I'm Don, this is my brother, the Doctor, and this is Rose," he said, gesturing to them in turn before extending his hand to shake the old man's. The man didn't take it, gazing at it for a moment before looking back at Don, who quickly continued. "We're, um, holiday makers, got a bit lost, can't find our hotel. We're looking for some shelter for the night?"

"Eh? Speak up!" the man suddenly yelled.

Don tried desperately not to flinch in the blast of his horrendous breath, steeling himself and widening his smile.

"Sorry," he began again, a bit louder. "We're looking for..."

"Eh?"

"SORRY! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?"

"Ye," the man gruffed.

"GOOD! WE'RE LOOKING FOR SHELTER! WE'RE LOST!"

The man stared at him for a moment.

"WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO REPEAT THAT A LITTLE LOUDER FOR YOU?"

"No," the man replied simply, reaching to the side and fumbling for something before holding out some keys to Don, jerking his head to the left side of his home.

"There be an old 'ouse," he grunted as Don took the keys. "Out back. But..." The old man suddenly looked around behind the group for a moment as if looking for any lurking bystanders, before leaning forward to Don... "But don't be goin' in the cellar... Cos those that do... don't never come out."

And with that, he slammed the door shut and the three time travellers were left standing there in the dark, staring at the place he'd been.

"Well," Don began, turning to the other two. "That was ominous."

"This feels like the start to a really bad horror story," Rose mused, giggling and clinging onto the Doctor a little tighter for warmth.

"Horror stories aren't this dull," the Doctor muttered.

"To our hotel room then, I guess," Don said, shrugging and smiling half-heartedly.

* * *

They found the house around twenty metres from the farmhouse, another complete wreck of a building slowly but surely decaying before their eyes. As Don inserted the key into the front door lock the door decided it had had enough, and just collapsed backwards into the house with a feeble crash and plume of dust on impact.

"It was like that when we found it," Don muttered, staring at the fallen door.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and followed Don inside the hallway, helping Rose over the collapsed door before both men grabbed it and pushed it back up into the door-frame to block out the elements. Not that it made even the slightest difference as the wind and rain continued to crash against the sides of the old, creaking house. The Doctor drew three torches out of his jacket and passed them around, and for a moment they just tried to process their surroundings. Within moments all three beams of light were rested on the floor at the end of the hall, where sat an old trapdoor in the floor – the cellar door. It was chained shut, still and silent. It didn't seem very threatening, but all the same, they all glanced at each other.

Rose caught the Doctor's expression. "You wanna open it, don't you?"

He looked a little guilty, hopping from foot-to-foot. "You don't?"

She rolled her eyes, just as another gust of wind crashed against the house and the entire structure seemed to wobble.

"Is this safe?" Rose wondered vaguely.

"Probably not," the Doctor admitted, checking a light switch, and unsurprisingly it didn't work. He moved to check the mirror propped up against the hallway wall, then frowned, running a finger along it and staring at the completely black dust he'd picked up. He was about to put it into his mouth almost instinctively before Rose quickly grabbed his hand and cleaned it off, glaring at him.

"What?" the Doctor asked, genuinely confused.

"That's disgustin'!" she squeaked.

"Oh, everything's disgusting to you," Don replied airily, starting off down the corridor as he assumed a mock high-pitched voice, "don't pick your nose, Don, that's disgusting! Don't mix custard and peanut butter, Don! That's disgusting! Don't throw yourself into that manure pile and then not wash for a week, Don! That's disgusting!"

He disappeared around the corner, taking his rant with him. Rose just sighed, and made her way down the corridor to check the bedrooms, leaving the Doctor standing alone in the hallway. The wind howled, the rain fell, a loose door somewhere slammed closed with the wind.

He quickly decided to make himself occupied by checking out the kitchen.

* * *

At first Don had been relieved to find out there was a toilet, but then slightly horrified to discover how bad of a state he had found it in. He was slightly glad he only had to pee so he could remain fully upright whilst doing it, because the seat didn't look very appealing.

There was no loo roll, and the taps didn't work. Everything was rusted, dirty and covered in cobwebs, with damp covering the majority of the wall. He didn't feel particularly compelled to look any deeper into the crevices of the bathroom, and went back to the mirror to check how he looked.

"Bloody hell," he muttered to his reflection. He'd decided to grow his hair a little longer than the Doctor's, and this was only a detriment in the harsh weather as it was now completely tangled and slicked down his forehead. He had found out long ago that Donna was quite appearance conscious, so he'd already decided he wasn't going to leave this bathroom until he was mildly attractive. He drew out a comb he kept readily in his pocket, and tried desperately to sort it out.

Just as he was finishing up he looked down to pull the matted hair out of his comb, dropping it into the sink. He looked back up at his reflection again... but suddenly something appeared in mirror's reflection that hadn't been there before...

He jumped and turned around, but nothing was there. He waited a few seconds, just breathing, then looked back at the mirror.

Nothing there.

"Idiot," he breathed to himself, shoving his comb into his pocket and making a few final adjustments before quickly moving out of the bathroom.

* * *

Rose had discovered this place had three bedrooms, still with the beds in. A master bedroom with a huge King-sized bed and two smaller bedrooms with single beds. The one with the least cobwebs was the master bedroom, so she decided she was going to reserve that for the night.

Tentatively she lifted the duvet to check the state of the sheet. To her surprise it seemed clean, but when she dropped the duvet a huge plume of dust exploded out and engulfed her in a chorus of coughing and choking.

Okay, she thought after she'd managed to recover. It could be worse. It could be full of spiders.

She turned her attentions away from the bed, and instead to the drawers beside it. She pulled one open to have a look to find a small, golden heart-shaped locket – quite beautiful in its own right. She picked it up and tried to open it, but it seemed to be stuck fast.

She shrugged and pocketed it. It wasn't like anyone would miss it, and it a nice little object to have. But just as she went to close the drawer she suddenly stopped, catching a glimpse of what seemed like a sharp metal knife, covered in blood...

She did a double-take, but whatever it was seemed to have disappeared, leaving an empty drawer. Just a trick of the light, she supposed, and closed it.

But all the same, she quickly left to find the Doctor and Don.


	2. II

The Doctor had been left to his own devices in the kitchen. He'd found an abandoned saucepan on the cooker, filled with some kind of aged black that mould that even  _he_ didn't feel like licking. The worktops were scratched and caked in dust, the corners of the room were covered in yet more mould and cobwebs and the already ajar door of the fridge reveal a rather impressive rat's nest, with several rats and many rat babies lying dead inside.

The window of the kitchen was also wide open, flooding the windowsill and clogged kitchen sink beneath it with the relentless rain. He reached forward to grab the metal handle, yanking it closed with a loud squeal of rusted metal hinges and pulling the handle down to secure it. He rubbed at the dirt on the window with his palm and peered out at the miserable October night, wondering where the hell the Pixians had left the TARDIS.

He sighed, and was about to turn away, when suddenly he caught sight of what seemed to be a black silhouette of a person standing across the field... He couldn't make it out. He blinked slightly to focus, but whatever he had caught sight of seemed to have gone. Shrugging, he turned back... And came face-to-face with a black figure standing in the doorway, striding towards him..

He yelped and fumbled for his torch, quickly panning it to the doorway to reveal it was in fact Rose, staring at him, slightly bemused.

"You okay?" she wondered, laughing.

"You shocked me," the Doctor muttered, breathing again before he quickly changed the subject. "How are the bedrooms?"

"Dusty," Rose replied immediately. "But there's a double room and two singles."

"Good," the Doctor replied, nodding slowly.

Don then appeared behind Rose, his hair slightly more presentable than it had been earlier. "Anything to eat?"

The Doctor stared at him, then soundlessly gestured at their surroundings. "What exactly were you expecting?"

Don shrugged. "Dunno, but I could really go for cheese on toast, right now."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Well, there's some dead rat, and a saucepan full of mould."

"Or as the French call it, lunch," Don said quickly, grinning before his face dropped again. "Seriously, though. Can't we order a pizza, or something?"

"Can't, I tried," Rose admitted, holding up her phone. "I can't get any signal."

"I thought that had universal roaming?" Don wondered. "Gets signal anywhere?"

"Welcome to south-west England," the Doctor replied simply, moving passed them into the adjoining living room. Rose and Don followed him, where he was already getting a fire going in the fireplace out of bits of broken wall and his sonic. Pretty soon the fire sparked into being and they gathered around it like moths to a flame, trying to warm up and dry out from the rain.

"This place ain't so bad," Don supposed after a moment, looking around. "Bit of a dusting, bit of refurbishment, I reckon some Escape To The Country person would buy it."

"And get rid of the creepy neighbour," Rose added, laughing.

"Yeah, he's probably dragging the price down a bit," Don replied, grinning.

From the corner an old Grandfather clock which miraculously still seemed to work began to chime. The group looked up to find it was midnight.

"It's officially Halloween," the Doctor announced.

"Oh, let's tell scary stories!" Don said quickly, getting into his knees and grinning. "C'mon, it'll be fun! I've got one!"

The Doctor and Rose waited in anticipation as Don lit his face up with his torch, widening his eyes and trying to look as scary as possible.

"There was once a couple in Scotland who had just moved into an old castle. It wasn't long before they decided to empty out the wine cellar, and they found a large barrel of brandy. They tried moving it and even got a few friends to help, but they couldn't budge it. In the end, they decided to have a house-warming party and give glasses of brandy out to empty the barrel and make it easier to move. A few days after the party, they went into the cellar and tried to move the barrel again. It still wouldn't move. The husband got his saw in order to cut it into smaller pieces, and they cut off the top of the barrel..." He paused, and began to wave his hand mysteriously. "Inside was a dead body and they had drank the brandy that had preserved it!"

He was met with silence.

"What?" Don asked, brow furrowed.

"That was awful," the Doctor answered, glancing at Rose who sniggered a little.

"You tell one then," Don harrumphed, folding his arms and staring expectantly at the Doctor.

"Okay," the Doctor began, thinking for a moment. "Right, got one..." He lit up his face with the torch, and instantly he was in character, his face completely impassive, staring at them both with wide, staring eyes. "The story of Elizabeth is one that's been passed down through generations in south-west England, telling the very horrifying tale of a young blonde woman named Elizabeth, the cook of Plymtree Manor.

"Orphaned as a young girl, Elizabeth was a peasant of the lowest kind with no education, relatives or hope for the future, and made a living as a call girl for the local brothel. She served there for ten years, until finally on her 24th birthday she was visiting the market as a daily routine and found an old, well-dressed man struggling to carry his purchases. Feeling sympathetic, she helped the old man to take his goods back to where he lived as a butler at Plymtree Manor. She quickly discovered they were short of many staff, and the butler put in a good word for her with the Lord of the manor. In a sudden reversal of fortune she was readily taken on as the cook, given her own bed and all the food she could ever want.

"But the Lord of the manor recognised her very quickly as he had often visited the brothel, and he took advantage of her almost every night. Elizabeth tried to endure this, but soon the Lady of the manor began verbally abusing her too, even having her beaten when she did even the tiniest thing wrong. Elizabeth continued to endure this for one long, painful year, until one night she decided she'd had enough. At midnight she sneaked out of her room with a carving knife in hand and went to the outbuilding where the Lord kept his hunting dogs, stole one, killed it, chopped it up and put it in a stew. She served the stew to the Lord and Lady that night, taking obscene pleasure in the joy of watching the Lord scoff his precious hunting dog down and at the same time wondering where one of them had gone.

"She kept stealing the hunting dogs and serving them to the Lord and Lady, who were wondering more and more where the hunting dogs were going. But soon Elizabeth grew bored of this, and in the middle of the night she took her trusty carving knife, sneaked to the stables and killed his precious horse. The Lord grieved that night for the loss of his favourite horse... But little did he know he was eating it at that very moment. Elizabeth laughed, but still she wanted more,  _more_  revenge.

"So the next day when the Lord was out with his associates to return for a feast later that evening, the Lady came down to taunt Elizabeth. Elizabeth grabbed her carving knife and plunged it straight through the Lady's heart, killing her instantly. She took the body, drained the Lady's blood and prepared the flesh and organs for the feast that night. She took the blood and sneaked down to the wine cellar, and mixed each and every wine with the blood of the Lady, and some poison to finish the job.

"That night the feast was served of the Lord's dead wife, and a few bottles of the blood-tainted wine. The Lord and his associates ate and drank happily until they were so drunk they fell asleep, and the poison began to take effect. The next morning Elizabeth went to the dining room and taunted the dead men, telling them all she had done for her revenge – but little did she know, the butler had heard every word. He simply took a knife, sneaked up behind her and plunged it repeatedly into her back until she was well and truly dead.

"The butler left the manor quickly before the guards arrived to find the Lord and his associates dead. But the guilt of stabbing her in the back somehow plagued the Butler's subconscious and he took Elizabeth's dead body with him in a bag. He tried burning her body, but she didn't seem to burn. He tried weighing her down and throwing her in the river, but she always came to the surface back to him. He tried leaving her somewhere in a wood, but he couldn't bring himself to walk away. Soon he realised that the pure guilt of killing Elizabeth would not allow him to leave her, so upon arriving in a small country village, he bought an old patch of land with two houses on with the last of his pennies. He took Elizabeth's body to the second house and threw her body into the cellar, chaining up the door, locking up all the doors and windows to make sure no one could ever accidentally find her. He himself took residence in the second house next to it, and stayed there until his dying day.

"Many weren't aware of the history of Elizabeth's house, and have moved in since. But each and every time someone did, a few weeks later they have completely disappeared without a trace. No one can say for sure what happened to them, but the only striking similarity between the disappearances was that each time a family disappeared, the only things left at the house were a ready cooked stew on the stove, a fully set dinner table and on the side two glasses of the reddest wine you have ever seen."

He finished, and Rose and Don just stared, wide-eyed. Suddenly a gust of wind crashed up against the side of the house and both Don and Rose screamed high-pitched screams and grabbed onto the Doctor, utterly terrified.

The Doctor looked between them, sighing. "Bedtime, anyone?"

Neither of them made a sound.

"Okay," the Doctor breathed, pushing them off of him and getting to his feet. "I'm going to show you two children that there's nothing to be scared of. Come on."

He led them across the room and out into the hallway, straight to the end of it where sat the cellar door. He knelt down next to it and whipped out the sonic.

Don and Rose froze instantly, eyes wide. "He's opening it," Don breathed, looking at Rose. "He's opening the door the creepy old man told us not to open!"

The Doctor ignored Don, buzzed the chain and in one swift movement pulled it open. Don and Rose clung onto each other instantly, staring...

"Hello?" the Doctor yelled into the black depths of the cellar, shining a torch down. "Hello? Terrifying monster? Ghost? Dead body? Creepy things? Hello? Are you there?  _Hellooo!"_

Nothing happened.

"Oh, I think he's gone out," the Doctor joked, looking at them both and grinning.

They both relaxed, letting go of each other.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and closed the cellar door, straightening up and pocketing the sonic. "Bed." He led them to the bedrooms. "Three bedrooms, one each. I call shotgun on the double."

Rose drew back, staring at him. "You gotta be kiddin', I'm not sleepin' alone!"

"Neither am I," Don said quickly, but then realised himself and let go of the Doctor, trying to regain some manly dignity. "I mean... for Rose and you. I'm fine on my own, obviously."

"Well, how about me and Rose take the double and you go in the single room?" the Doctor suggested.

Don's eyes widened and he grabbed onto the Doctor again. "Please don't leave me alone!" he squeaked at 100 miles per hour.

"Okay, okay," the Doctor said, hands in the air. "We'll all sleep in the double. All right?"

He got two nods back at him.

"Okay," he breathed, and dragged two very frightened companions into the double bed room, leaving the cellar door unlocked...

* * *

Rose was laid in the middle of the bed between the Doctor and Don, clinging onto their hands tightly in a death grip. The Doctor had fallen asleep ten minutes after they'd gone to bed, but she and Don had been awake together for around an hour, listening to the wind howling and the rain still pouring, crashing against the sides of the old, rotting house. They kept hearing noises, creaks and groans, but tried to dismiss any further thoughts. It was the house. It was a creaking gate outside. It wasn't a ghost. Ghosts weren't real.

Then Don's gentle snores started up, and Rose found herself completely alone. A gate creaked and banged outside, and she jumped a little. This was stupid. Ghosts, weren't, real. If the Doctor had taught her anything, it was that there was a logical, scientific explanation for everything, and what she couldn't instantly reason her conditioned human brain automatically classified into something she could identify with for some sense of control – the supernatural. Ghosts weren't real.

There was a loud thud from above her head.

She turned over to the Doctor, holding his hand tightly as she buried herself under the duvet and tried desperately to block out the noises.

Then suddenly she heard a thunk... then another thunk... then another... Footsteps. Footsteps were coming towards the room, slowly, deliberately...

She peeked out from behind the duvet, slowly pulling it down to look at the door as the footsteps drew closer and closer, a shadow flashed across the door and suddenly the thunks stopped, right outside the door...

"D-D-Doc-t-tor..." she stuttered in a terrified whisper, shaking him. "D-Doct-t-tor..."

"What?" the Doctor muttered tiredly, turning over to her, half-asleep.

She grabbed his arm and slowly pointed to the door with it. "Footsteps!" she squeaked.

The Doctor sighed and sat up, looking at the door and listening for a few moments. Then he sank back into bed and rolled over again, closing his eyes. "Nothing there, Rose, go to sleep."

"But..."

He was already asleep.

The apparent footsteps didn't sound again. Maybe she really  _was_ making it all up.

All the same, she slipped right under the covers and drew them up to her nose, staring at the ceiling again for another ten minutes.

Then she realised she needed the toilet.

She couldn't hold it, she had to go. But there was no way she was going on her own. She turned over to Don and shook him gently.

"No," Don muttered, still half in a dream. "I'm too tired for sex, Lance..."

Rose blinked, frowning slightly, deciding not to delve any further into his dream. She had to conquer her fear, and to do that, she had to go alone.

Swallowing, she slowly clambered out of bed, shimmying across the cover to stand up at the end of the bed. She took the Doctor's coat and torch, wrapping the former around her and the latter shaking about in her nervous palm.

Suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea.

But she had to go on. She took a breath, counted to ten, stepped forward and opened the bedroom door.

The hallway was empty and completely undisturbed, but somehow every creak seemed to be something out to get her, so she tried not to think about it. This was pathetic. She'd seen off thousands of alien monsters and she had never, ever been as scared as this before. The Doctor would be laughing at her if he could see her, she knew. So she forced herself onwards walking to the bathroom...

She got there, and pushed open the door. It was almost completely pitch black inside; her torch being the only source of light, reflecting off a mirror. She carefully stepped forward towards the old dirty toilet, looking at the mirror with just a glance... And caught a black silhouette behind her...

She tried to look around, but all she could do was stand and stared at the mirror reflection, transfixed by the silhouette. It couldn't be a... It was just... Just a shadow... On the wall... Just a...

The silhouette began to grow bigger, moving forward towards her. She tried to run, but her feet seemed frozen to the spot, she tried to scream but her voice had died in her throat, pure fear reaching up from inside her and squeezing on her throat as she stared wide eyed into the mirror... Then the silhouette suddenly darted forward into the shadows to reveal its true form, reaching out from behind her towards her neck...


	3. III

The Doctor and Don simultaneously awoke to a bloodcurdling scream. They both sat up simultaneously, and it took them a few moments to realise where they were. Then at the same time they remembered the scream, then both looked to the middle of the bed where Rose should have been. Then they looked at each other, with wide eyes.

The Doctor was up in a shot and out the door. Don stumbled out of bed to pursue, managing to get tangled in the bed sheets and fall headlong into the wall before righting himself, falling next over the gathering of coats and torches by the door before finally getting up, grabbing a torch and getting out the door... Just in time to hear the Doctor's harrowing scream...

He turned in the direction of the scream, just in time to see the cellar door slam shut closed at the end of the hall.

Then all was silent again.

Silently panicking, he was torn between going to the cellar door or run out the house screaming. He contemplated option two for a fleeting moment, turning back to where the front door was... But there didn't seem to be a front door there, anymore. Just a solid wall... Then he realised that there were no windows, either, completely immersing him in darkness...

Right. Okay. He was comfortably slotted into a full blown panic attack, now. But there was only option one left. He turned back to the cellar door and shone his torch on it... It seemed as harmless as it had been when he first saw it... But now he was all alone, the Doctor and Rose vanished in screams, and it seemed to be focused on the cellar door...

He began to move forward.

"Okay," Don thought aloud to himself, shuffling down the hall apprehensively towards the cellar door. "You're trapped in a creepy old house, sent by a creepy old man with a creepy old face, who told you not to go in the creepy old cellar. Then you went in the creepy old cellar..." He paused, thinking about that. "Why the hell did we do that? Anyway, thing is, ghosts aren't real. You gotta think like the Doctor, Don. Think like the Doctor! Even though he's completely disappeared with Rose, and now you're all alone in the creepy old house and the creepy old cellar the creepy old man told you not to go in. Right, never mind that," he dismissed. "You're the Doctor. Think like him. Be like him. Donna is useless in ghostly situations, I think we've found that out already. So switch on the Doctor. You need him. What would he do?"

His eyes widened in realisation and he grinned, diving into the kitchen. Then he dived back, holding the dead rat as a weapon.

"Okay," Don thought aloud, looking at the rat in his hand as he continued slowly advancing to the cellar door. "Not quite the Doctor, but it'll have to do. Really, you're not gonna get much better than this. So we're sticking with the dead rat plan? Yep. Okay. Dead rat it is..."

He began swinging the rat around and moving it in an arc in front of him as he kept pacing forwards, cautious. "I'm warning you! I've got a dead rat and I'm not afraid to use it!" he yelled out loud as threateningly as he could manage.

The cellar door was coming closer, ever closer...

"Be strong, Don! Be strong!" he urged to himself. "You're going to kick that monster's ass all the way to bloody Tipperary." He paused, thought about this. "Where the heck is Tipperary, anyway?" He dismissed these thoughts. "Anyway, back on topic. Monster in cellar. Right. Note the keyword, there. Monster. Not ghost. It's a monster. Something that's going to rip my head off, and all I've got is a dead rat. Okay," he stopped dead, looking at the ceiling. "How is this scaring me less than the possibility of it being a ghost?"

He was metres away, now, inching ever closer, and it felt like he was walking straight into his death. But he couldn't wimp out, now. He had to go on, save his friends...

Then suddenly the cellar door burst open and Don could hear thousands of resounding screams explode out with it, drilling into his ears he stumbled backwards in alarm before he managed to focus on the door again... It was the Doctor, struggling desperately to get out of the cellar but something Don couldn't see was trying to drag him back down...

"Get out, Don!" the Doctor gasped. "Get the hell out, now!"

"No!" Don decided in a yell, abandoning the dead rat to grab hold of the Doctor, trying to pull him out... "I got you, I got you!"

The Doctor suddenly screamed in pain as something cracked from below, and with a final yank from whatever it was below, the Doctor slipped out of Don's grasp like a wet bar of soap, the screams of hundreds getting even louder...

"I don't got you!" Don wailed. "Doctor!"

Instantly something flew up and grabbed him around the neck so fast he couldn't even begin to figure out what it looked like. It squeezed and he began to choke, before he was dragged down into the blackness of the cellar and plummeted to the floor below with a very disturbing squelch and the worrying crack of his head against something solid.

"Doctor?" he screamed, absolutely terrified as pain shot through the side of his head. "Rose?"

He flipped over to face the ceiling, and instantly saw something flying towards him. He rolled to the side and dodged it as it squelched to the floor next to him and there was an ensuing yell of pain.

"Doctor!" Don realised. "What the hell is..."

"Don, get out the cellar, out the house!" the Doctor yelled back. "Rose! Rose, where are you? ANSWER ME!"

" _Doctor!"_  Rose suddenly screamed, and it seemed to be coming out the walls around them.  _"It's gonna kill me! HELP ME!"_

"Where are you?"

" _It's so dark! Are you there? HELP ME!"_

"Rose I'm coming to get you!" the Doctor yelled back.

" _Please answer me, Doctor! Please be there!"_

"I'm coming!" the Doctor yelled and tried to pull himself up, but suddenly found himself completely pinned to the floor. And then his skin felt ticklish all over, like a million tiny legs were crawling all over him...

Then he realised it felt like that because they  _were._ Thousands of insects were crawling all over his body... Up his nose, in his mouth, in his eyes...

"Get off!" the Doctor yelled, trying to thrash around on the floor, his entire body screaming with pain until he got an arm free and reached out to where Don had been, trying desperately to find him. "Don! Don!"

He could hear them both screaming, now, joining the thousands of screams already drilling into his ears. His companions were screaming at him...

He got hold of something that felt like an arm but it was stone cold, and as he felt his way around it he realised it was the stump of an arm, torn off at the elbow... He yelped and dropped it, but suddenly he felt the cold fingers of that same stump of an arm holding his arm like a vice. Then it crawled up him and found his neck, wrapping all its dead cold fingers around his throat and squeezing as hard as it could.

He yelled a primal yell, forcing himself to sit up, his hands clinging to the dead arm around his neck, trying desperately to pull it off. But it wouldn't budge. He was coughing up insects, gasping for air, all sense of rationality having evaporated and replaced by utter fear of not understanding at all what was happening...

"Rose," he gasped, completely pinned to the floor now as he silently choked. "Don..."

He lost all feeling in his body. He couldn't even remember how to switch on his respiratory bypass. His brain was almost completely starved of oxygen. He was dying, dying in this cellar. It was his tomb. As murky shapes began to cascade around him he found himself strangely resigned to that concept...

The shapes in front of him turned into faces, faces of dead people screaming at him, begging for his help. Don and Rose were there, both crying and begging for mercy... He couldn't help them. He couldn't even breathe.

Suddenly a blinding light exploded into existence right in front of him, blinding him. He needed to go towards the light, but he couldn't. He couldn't see, he couldn't think, there were white figures all around him screaming in his ears...

The last remnants of consciousness left the Doctor and he fell deep, deep into the blackness.

 

* * *

The Doctor woke up, and instantly everything hurt. Something spiky was brushing against his cheek, and he opened his eyes to find himself lying on a bed of grass in a field in the morning sunshine.

He groaned and turned over instantly catching sight of Rose and Don lying on the grass around him. He could remember what had happened vividly, and for a moment he wondered whether it had all been some crazy dream... But the stabbing pain in what he knew was his broken leg, plus the cuts and bruises he could see through his ripped clothes told him that it had really happened.

He struggled to upright position, trying to ignore the pain in his leg as he hobbled over to a bruised and beaten Rose and shook her gently awake. She groaned and turned over to look up at him, and then her eyes widened.

"Oh God!" she gasped. "I remember..."

"Shush," the Doctor said quickly. "I know, me too."

"Ugh..." Another moan came from a few metres away where Don was stirring, holding his head with dried blood slicked all down it. "What the hell did I drink..."

"Don?" the Doctor asked.

Don blinked open his eyes to look at them both... And then instantly frowned. "Umm..." he began tentatively. "... Do you two remember something really weird happening last night?"

The Doctor and Rose simultaneously nodded.

"Oh, thank god, I'm not crazy," Don muttered, pushing himself to sit up... and then stared at something across the field. The Doctor and Rose followed his gaze to see the farmhouse and old crooked back house standing solitary at the bottom of the field, seemingly completely normal.

"Did it really happen?" Don wondered.

The Doctor nodded, gesturing to his leg. "Broke it getting dragged into the cellar..."

They all looked at each other for a moment.

"How did we..." Rose began.

"Don't know," the Doctor admitted.

"When did we..." Don began in a croak.

"Don't know," the Doctor repeated.

"But what about that old man?" Don asked quickly. "I'll give him a bloody piece of my mind!"

"Let's just leave, and really quickly, yeah?" Rose said, pushing herself to her feet and helping the Doctor to stand up.

"Okay, good idea," Don acknowledged, getting to his feet with his hand on the side of his blooded head. He moved to the other side of the Doctor to support him, and together the three wounded time travellers left Old Grey Farm onto the road, slowly making their way to the TARDIS.

On their way there, they passed an old, tarnished sign, the edges rusting but the lettering was quite clear.

**You are now leaving Casperton**

**Please visit us again!**

"Not bloody likely," Don muttered.

* * *

To everyone's great relief, they found the TARDIS parked about five minutes outside of Casperton, and the first port of call was straight to the Infirmary to patch up their wounds. As Don left ten minutes later to the toilet with quite worrying double vision, Rose patched up the Doctor's broken leg as per his instructions.

"Umm... What do you think happened?" Rose wondered quietly as she ran the osteo-regenerator methodically over his leg.

The Doctor could only shrug.

"So you don't think it was supernatural?"

"How many times, the supernatural doesn't exist," the Doctor insisted. "It can all be rationalised and explained if you just stop and look at the facts."

"Then explain what happened," Rose challenged seriously.

"I dunno, we didn't go back so we couldn't find out." Then he caught her expression and laughed. "Okay, we're never going back, and we'll probably never know. But I thought you liked danger?"

"Not that kind," Rose muttered. "I was so scared, I was screamin' for you but you weren't answering, there were these dead bodies and shadows and..." She stopped talking, and just shuddered. "It was horrible. I'm gonna have bad dreams for weeks."

"I know," the Doctor replied quietly.

She finished with the osteo-regenerator and snapped a cast around his leg, sealing it closed with the sonic.

"Were you scared?" Rose suddenly asked, looking up at him.

The Doctor shrugged. "I was, but I think I was more scared that I didn't know what was happening, or where you or Don were, or how to get to you."

She smiled supportively, reaching up for a long overdue hug, warm in his embrace.

"All done!" she announced when she drew back, tapping gently on his potted leg.

"Thanks," the Doctor grinned.

" _Um, guys,"_ Don's disembodied voice began unsurely over a loudspeaker from above.  _"Come to the console room."_

The Doctor groaned and with Rose's help got to his feet, taking the pair of crutches offered to him. They made it to the console room where they found Don hunched over the TARDIS monitor. They hobbled over to see what he was looking at – it was a map.

"I just searched for Old Grey Farm to see if there was any info," Don began inn explanation. "But there was nothing. So I looked for the village, Casperton... And, well... It doesn't exist."

"What?"

"It's just fields, there. There's no Casperton. Not on the map, not in the local directory, nowhere."

The Doctor frowned, leaning to the monitor to check. "That can't be right."

"There's a Casperton Beach in Florida," Don said, shrugging. "But there's no trace of any village anywhere called Casperton, or any place called Old Grey Farm... In the entire world."

All three looked at each other.

"Naaah," the Doctor finally said, straightening up. "We must've read the signs wrong."

"Must've," Rose muttered, a little unconvinced.

She and Don looked at each other.

"Well, I for one am knackered and in pain so I'm nominating today sleep-in day," the Doctor announced, limping to the TARDIS corridor. "Remember, there's no such thing as ghosts!" He was gone.

There was a slight pause.

"No such thing," Don repeated, looking at Rose.

"No such thing," she said in turn, looking back at him. Feeling something digging into her side she drew out the locket she'd taken from the house and stared at it for a moment, before setting it down on the console. If Casperton had been a ghost town then surely the locket wouldn't exist?

This reassured her, and she and Don simultaneously nodded and moved off into the TARDIS corridor.

In the darkness of the now empty console room, the locket necklace Rose had left on the console suddenly slipped off the side and hit the floor, bursting open on impact. A spiral of white suddenly shot out and began to manifest itself into a solid form...

It blinked open cold, emotionless eyes, and gazed at its new surroundings...

It was in the real world once more, and it was hungry. And it had three very tasty treats right in this very place...

It silently moved to the TARDIS corridor, where the three treats were lying asleep and helpless in their beds...

**The End...**


End file.
